QUICK LATE REVIEW: Finding Dory

17Aug

Howdy ladies and gents, time for another one of those new film reviews and today I’m reviewing something I should have talked about a while ago; Finding Dory. After seeing all of my main films in the cinema, I decided to finally see Finding Dory as it is the only other film currently going that I haven’t checked out yet. So was it good or bad? Well read on and find out.

The story for this film can be summarised as the following:

“Dory, the amnesiac fish remembers that she has parents and goes on a quest to find them. In the process she gets caught and taken to an aquarium in California, so it is up to Marlin and Nemo to save her.”

Before I begin I have to say that while I like Finding Nemo, it’s never been one of my favourite Pixar films and when I heard about this sequel I was so uninterested it was unreal (unlike when Incredibles 2 was announced). So when the film was released I just had no immediate need to check it out, but I’m glad I gave this film a watch as it was much better than I was expecting. Firstly I didn’t expect this film to have so many layers when it came to Dory and her backstory, and then with some of the other central chaarcters she interacted with. I aslo didn’t expect the film to have the emotional content that was on display, it was genuinely touching and dramatic at points and it definitely was tapping into that Pixar magic that the best films are known for. But for all of the great elements, this film has a lot of standard/so so moments that I think would work more if you were a die-hard fan of the original or a child when it came to the references and humour.

The cast was solid with some lovely performances from all involved. Firstly Ellen DeGeneres as Dory was pretty much the same as you remember from 2003, Dory’s still quirky and zany, I’ve always found the character annoying to a degree and that’s definitely the case in this film too… HOWEVER! This film goes a long way to make you empathise with her because of her past, short-term memory and her need to find her parents. I felt for Dory and she became a really compelling character and DeGeneres really added layers to the character with her voice work. Albert Brooks was also gret as Marlin, and Hayden Rolence also did a good job as Nemo, both Marlin and Nemo had some really special moments of drama and humour together and with Dory. Ed O’Neill was fabulous as Hank, this was the much-talked about character that I knew about, but didn’t expect to be as attached to as I did. Hank was grouchy and selfish, and had his own agenda, but he also had a great arc and had some really great interaction with Dory. Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy were wonderful as Jenny and Charlie, Dory’s parents. Also I loved Destiny the whale shark, but to now that she was voiced by Kaitlin Olson makes me love her more, and Ty Burrell as Bailey was so delightfully fun. But my two favourite standout characters were Fluke and Rudder the sea lions, these guys were so funny, strange and lazy, and as soon as I heard Fluke I knew it was Idris Elba, but I wasn’t sure if Rudder was Dominic West (which I now know it is). It must have been done on purpose to have two of the key actors from The Wire paired together haha. 🙂 This film also looked very pretty and detailed with some great CGI and cinematography, and the music from Thomas Newman certainly had its moments where the film score got really good too.

In conclusion Finding Dory was a fun and surprisingly heartwarming adventure, and while I don’t consider it on the higher end of the Pixar film scale, at the same time it was better than a lot of Pixar’s previous recent events (excluding Inside Out).

2 responses to “QUICK LATE REVIEW: Finding Dory”

Hey there! Great job as always with encapsulating your thoughts in a quick review format. I wasn’t that interested in the sequel, mainly because I haven’t watched Finding Nemo. Someone told me once that it put them to sleep and was for kids lol. I’ve been catching up on more Pixar movies the other month and will eventually get to this one especially with all the warm reviews and positive feedback on the cast.

Thanks man. Yeah Finding Nemo is one the Pixar number ones for a lot of people. But not for me, I like it, but don’t love it. But this film is certainly not the crappy sequel I thought it’d be. I may do a Pixar-related blog post at some point so it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on the series of films as a whole.